What’s up with all the threats to bees?
Colony Collapse Disorder, rather more descriptively called “vanishing bee syndrome” by the British, has been much in the news, but bees were in pretty bad shape before this latest decimation. Some claim there are no more, or very few, wild (a.k.a. feral) hives in the Northeast, for instance. Beset by other insect parasites, as well as viral and bacterial diseases, the honey bee has a tough row to hoe. Some blame human interference, particularly the industrial-like exploitation of honey bees by commercial agriculture (where they are shipped cross-country to pollinate many vegetables, fruits, & nuts), as well as associated petrochemical-based monoculture (where once there were meadows, now there is a toxin-doused genetic deadzones). Additionally, as a beekeeper, you keep running into people who say, “my grandfather had bees…”. It was once far more common for people to keep hives, either as an adjunct to the farm or as a backyard hobby. The benefits of this variety and distribution, proba
